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March 27, 2015 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In his article, "New threats of war and fascism",[1], John Pilger rightly denounces the history of US military intervention around the world. But he gives a distorted account of the events leading up to NATO's war against Serbia in 1999. He fails to recognise that the previous actions of the Serbian government created the conditions which made NATO's attack on Serbia possible.

The Serbian-chauvinist regime of Slobodan Milosevic had provoked a rebellion by the Albanian population of Kosova [also referred to as Kosovo]. It had also alienated most of the other nationalities of the former Yugoslavia. This left Serbia isolated when NATO attacked.

Pilger condemns the "criminal record" of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), but seems to absolve the Serbian government of any wrongdoing.

November 3, 2014 -- Globalinequality, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- As I was leaving Berlin less than a week before the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as celebrations there were going strong, I decided to look at the balance sheet of transition countries (even if the term is no longer fully adequate) over the past quarter century.

[The general line of this report was adopted by the June 12-14, 1999 DSP National Committee plenum. Text is taken from The Activist, volume 9, number 5, 1999]

On Wednesday March 24, 1999, the secretary-general of NATO, former
Spanish social-democratic minister of culture Javier Solana, told a
press conference: "I have just given the order to the Supreme Commander
of Allied Forces in Europe, United States General Wesley Clark, to begin
air operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."

The following day 371 NATO warplanes undertook bombing raids and
six NATO warships in the Adriatic launched cruise missiles against
targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Between March 25 and the cessation of NATO bombing raids on June
9, more than 30,000 combat missions had been flown by NATO warplanes
against Yugoslavia. Thousands of civilians in Serbia have been killed or
wounded. Millions of Serbian workers are now living without
electricity, or water, or jobs. Factories, power stations, houses,
hospitals, bridges and roads have been destroyed or damaged. The
destruction of oil refineries and petrochemical plants have poisoned the
air, rivers and soil of Serbia with toxic products. It has been
estimated that the reconstruction of damaged or destroyed infrastructure
will cost between $US15-50 billion.